Obama will supposedly announce Solicitor General Elena Kagan, the RUMORED LESBIAN, as his Supreme Court nominee, says Mike Allen. “The pick isn’t official, but top White House aides will be shocked if it’s otherwise.” OMG Glenn Greenwald is gonna be pissed! People of color and women, too!
the supremes
If Supreme Court Nominations Were a Traded Commodity, Brokers Would Be Betting on Elena Kagan Right Now
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Matt
Oh wait, they are. http://www.intrade.com/jsp/intrade/common/c_cd.jsp?conDetailID=719012&z=1273246699864
Michael @ LeonardMatlovich.com
NOT just Glenn Greenwald will be [or SHOULD BE] angry; not just people of color and women…but EVERYONE who gives a damn about THEIR civil liberties, their right to free speech, to privacy, and to associate with whomever they choose should be DEMANDING that Obama not “go Right” yet again.
Kagan is NOT “a liberal” …regardless of whom she sleeps with any more than Mary Cheney and George Rekers are.
It’s NOT just that Kagan betrayed her own history as Dean of Harvard Law School of banning military recruiters because of DADT and legally attacking it [as coplaintiff of a lawsuit against the Solomon Amendment] when she, in he current role as Obama’s Solicitor General, convinced the Supremes to throw out a constitutional challenge to DADT last year by DADT victim Jim Pietrangelo [the same arrested twice this year at the White House].
[img]http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Z6OyJfBKnXk/S6O2DwPGZyI/AAAAAAAAK4E/IC2njPpbTqc/s400/DADT+protest+18+March+2010+ohoto+from+AmericaBlog[/img]
In her brief, Kagan defended DADT in the SAME homophobic terms John McShame and Elaine Donnelly do: it’s necessary to preserve unit cohesion and military discipline. But that’s small compared to her defense of the so-called “Patriot Act” and its violations of the First Amendment, privacy, and freedom of association.
“The Huffington Post’s” Sam Stein wrote recently that the White House had “reached out to progressive allies” and asked them “to dismiss” articles written by Salon commentator Glenn Greenwald, a gay, civil rights attorney, arguing against the selection of Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court. What had them so upset?
Greenwald is no lazy hurler of ad hominems. He researches his opinions, and documents them with both biography and direct quotes by Kagan and others. If there is a colloquial, overarching theme it is that Kagan is the textbook example justifying judging someone by those who admire them:
Greenwald quotes several “New York Times” articles, including this one:
Characterizing the Federalist Society as merely “a conservative legal group” is like saying the KKK simply did a lot of good for the white sheets industry. Two names: Bork and Scalia.
Graham, for those unaware, is, in addition to being rumored to being gay himself, is one of the most powerful, Cracker-voiced flame throwers for the Far Right and a tireless warmonger who has voted twice to amend the US Constitution to ban marriage equality, strongly opposes domestic partner benefits, voted against legalizing gay adoptions, strongly favors teacher-led prayer in public schools, has a 0% rating by the ACLU, HRC, & SANE; a 100% rating by the Christian Coalition & the National ‘Right to Life’ Committee, & an “A” rating by the NRA.
He asked Kagan: “If our intelligence agencies should capture someone in the Philippines that is suspected of financing Al Qaeda worldwide, would you consider that person part of the battlefield? Do you agree with that?” ELENA KAGAN: “I do.”
In other words, Kagan believes suspected terrorists/“enemy combatants” can be held indefinitely without charges and trial. [NB: OAG Eric Holder believes the same.] Kagan has “also agreed that an American citizen could be prosecuted for drafting a legal brief or writing a newspaper article in coordination with a banned group.” – LA Times.
In February, representing the Obama Administration before the Supreme Court in “Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project,” Kagan said, “What Congress decided [in the Patriot Act] was when you help Hezbollah build homes, you are also helping Hezbollah build bombs. That’s the entire theory behind the statute.” – NY Times.
“[The HLP] say they want to provide support for the legal, nonviolent activities of a Kurdish political party and a Tamil group, both of which have been designated as terrorist organizations by the State Department. One plaintiff, Ralph D. Fertig, a retired lawyer, has said he wanted to help the Kurdish group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, find peaceful ways to protect the rights of Kurds in Turkey and to bring their claims to the attention of international bodies.” Ibid.
Ironically, it was the very Justice whom she may be nominated to replace, John Paul Stevens, who asked Kagan, “if there was an authentic risk that Mr. Fertig would be prosecuted were he to make a presentation on behalf of the Kurdish group at the United Nations. He seemed to expect a negative answer. But Ms. Kagan would say only that the matter would involve a ‘prosecutorial judgment’.” Ibid.
My first personal opposition to Kagan was based solely on her betrayal of her own past legal protests against DADT. Greenwald’s research proves there are even greater, chilling reasons to oppose her, and I urge everyone concerned about whom Obama may nominate for the lifetime seat on the Supreme Court to read more at
http://www.salon.com/news/opin…..09/stevens Greenwald has since added a lengthy, detailed deconstruction [read: shredding to bits] of three of the articles defending Kagan that have appeared since the White House “reached out” at: http://www.salon.com/news/opin…..index.html
It closes with:
Mike L.
I think that we’ll just have to see what happens when and if she is confirmed and does some rulings.
My personal reason for why she’s not the bad guy in the DADT ruling is that, one she’s working for the pres he and his DOJ dictate what she must and must not defend.
She’s probably been aming for the supreme court since her career started, and that is why she’s been as low key about her private life among other issues.
But once sworn in, she can open up and really interpret the constitution as it should be a living body not some commandment written in stone that never changes even when society does. I think she’ll do right with the DOMA and Prop 8 cases, she is just following orders from her boss. Do you think that she would retain her position as AG under the pres or even be considered a candidate the supreme court by the administration IF she had gone against the pres’ wishes? No.
Regardless of the outcome, who ever is picked and finally sworn in we really don’t know what will happen, we may have some idea as I do and Michael above and others do for what each of the nominies would do when sworn in but really until they start ruling on cases we can’t be 100% sure.
Mike L.
Meant to say Solicitor General Kagan NOT Attorney General lol.
Michael @ LeonardMatlovich.com
@Mike L.:
Uh, Mike, there’s no “do over” if she turns out to be just as bad as Greenwald, an authority on civil liberties, and others, fear. He’s not GUESSING. He’s not just evaluating her Adolf Eichmannlike blind allegiance to Power since becoming SG. She hired Right Wing veterans of various Republican administrations as profs for Harvard’s Law School. She became the darling of their Federalist Society.
There’s no 90-day trial period, no recall process, no impeachment process.
We cannot AFFORD to be wait and see. She MUST be stopped in the nomination process, before it’s too late. Or do you want to go to your grave still living under not just DADT but Bush’s fascistic “Patriot Act”?
Matt
Oh wait, yes you can. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Chase
chris
I always love how the comments on this site are always more informative than the actual story.
Maybe queerty should start paying it’s readers 😛
Johnny
What a painfully dumb comment, Mike L. Right, lets support the nomination of this blank slate and hope she isn’t as centrist/right-wing as the president who is nominating her. Good plan! And if she turns out to be not so liberal after all, oops, guess the court will just have to lean even further to the right for decades to come. No biggie, at least not to a brain-free airhead incapable of weighing the consequences of such a horrific outcome.
the crustybastard
Justice Powell joined the majority in the odious Bowers v Hardwick ruling. He reckoned he didn’t know any gay people, didn’t think the case was important and said he’d spent 30 minutes thinking about it.
Naturally, he did know gay people, he just didn’t realize it.
When he discovered he knew and loved some gay people, and had ruled in a way that had caused them real harm, Powell made the unprecedented step of conceding publicly that he’d made a mistake.
There are several justices on the court today who are nothing short of homophobic, and have been making unchecked homophobic proclamations for too long. Justice Kagan might be the beginning of the end of the court’s gay-baiting.
(At least that’s how it worked for Catholics, Jews, Blacks and Women.)
Attorney Karlene Butch
You are a very thoughtful speaker. This is a helpful website.